by Christopher Roach
There is a lot of posthumous information about the election at the moment. Many people who predicted Kamala Harris would win are now trying to explain how Donald Trump was elected. Their ability to analyze data ex ante had obvious flaws, but humility and objectivity have long since ceased to be journalistic virtues.
In the run-up to the election, Trump showed many of the strengths I wrote about earlier, including his own physical couragehis authenticity and comfort among the common people and him resistance in the face of persecution.
He was also decisive on issues such as crime, immigration and inflation. These were the main failures of the Biden administration and the main concerns expressed by voters. Kamala’s campaign, full of “vibes,” “joy,” and other brilliant generalities, never convinced voters how she would solve any of these problems or why she was the right person to do it.
One of the biggest surprises was the huge augment in Trump’s support among various minority groups. He got it 20 percent black menOn at least 40 percent LatinoAND multiplicity Arab voters in Michigan 60 percent Native American voters, a most teenage men voters. In almost all cases, these gains exceed his 2016 and 2020 results.
This expansion of the base flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Even before 2008, when Obama destroyed John McCain, analysts argued that the Republican Party needed to become more moderate to appeal to women, minorities and recent immigrants.
In the eyes of analysts, the Republican Party had to adapt to a up-to-date America in which a majority composed of various minority groups was emerging. The party’s perceived toughness on immigration and other artifacts “Southern strategy” were considered the main reasons for the party’s failure to form a majority coalition.
In the face of these changes, the alleged nativism and bigotry of the Republican Party have taken on enormous importance. In response, George W. Bush began to flirt amnesty for illegal aliens and told us, “Family values don’t end at the Rio Grande.” Indeed, they don’t do it, but our country does.
Republican leaders convinced themselves that amnesty would be a great act of generosity for which the party would be rewarded. They assumed, but never actually established, that immigrant citizens cared deeply about helping undocumented immigrants. They also downplayed the fact that their doctrinaire, pro-corporate policies tended to discourage blue-collar Latino immigrants.
All the while, the Democratic left’s mass apparatus of hostility toward American history and white Americans continued to advance rapidly. Easily intimidated by any suggestion that their policies are racist, Republicans have avoided any defense of our common American heritage and will never acknowledge that Native Americans, most of them white, may have certain interests that have been undermined by affirmative action, mass immigration, and the like.
Even after the 9/11 attacks, which had their roots in Islamic extremism, any suggestion that being from the Middle East might constitute a risk factor when issuing visas or screening airline passengers was treated as an indefensible act of irrational racism, even by the Bush administration. Therefore, grandmothers who traced their roots back to the American Revolution had to take off their shoes and submit to a search at the airport.
As the GOP emerged from the Obama era, the 2016 primary candidates lined up competing for immigrant votes. They he spoke Spanish during the primary debates, he talked about how amnesty was the solution to immigration and expressed hostility to tariffs aimed at strengthening the wages and dignity of the American worker.
In other words, in the face of manipulative allegations of racism and the prospect of America’s changing demographics, the pre-Trump Republican Party was steadily tender in its knees and giving in.
When that didn’t aid, they started to get more tired.
The energy was low and she showed a complete lack of self-confidence. Instead of gaining more votes, the target audience for this campaign found it disgusting and disgusting.
Trump showed that the expansion of the Republican coalition would paradoxically result from doing the opposite of what the consulting class advised; namely, self-respect and defense of the concept of the common good. Trump’s positions on many issues – the border, immigration enforcement and building the wall – have come under attack ad nauseam as racist, backward and offensive. They were going to turn off the emerging non-white majority and, combined with the huge number of existing liberals, they would lose him in the election.
But everything worked out. He did better with all minority groups, especially Latinos, than the George W. Bushes, McCains and Romneys of the world. It was a large surprise, but there are several reasons.
First, Trump has never accepted a one-sided and unbalanced concept of race relations in which whites do all the bad things and everyone else is the victim group. It turns out that groups get along well when each of them has a certain amount of self-respect and responsibility. Holding our heads high, honoring our ancestors and standing up for our rights prevents the death spiral resulting from mutual hostility and mutual accusations. He brings out the best in everyone.
Trump’s rhetoric has always emphasized national unity and our collective interest in the common good, but he acknowledged that members of the majority are equal participants in American life and entitled to respect like everyone else. This is anathema to the contemporary politics of racial spoils, in which whites, and white men in particular, are continually demonized within the logic of “intersectionality.”
Second, many Latinos and others who have aligned themselves with Trump are not so different from natives that their interests and identities are different. Many of them are deeply assimilated, have several generations in our country and no longer have significant contact with their countries of origin. Many intermarry with Americans of other origins.
Additionally, native Latin American cultures tend to have more fluid notions of race and identity than the United States. Simply put, despite our public schools’ best efforts to prevent assimilation, coupled with Democrats’ attempts to fan the flames of resentment, Latinos are not particularly attached to race and grievance.
Finally, Democrats’ racial spoils policy may simply contain too many contradictions to create a stable majority coalition. For example, there has been much disagreement among Arab and Jewish Americans recently regarding the war in Gaza. Given the Biden administration’s policies, it was tough for Harris to appeal to both sides at once. While both groups are historic parts of the Democratic coalition, Trump’s reputation as a peacemaker has served him well among the Arab community, despite his public sympathies for Israel.
Most of Trump’s critics in the media, the Democratic Party and the pre-Trump GOP are tender, which is a collection molluscs, losersAND students. By contrast, Trump has plenty of presence, many years of business success, and is a well-known womanizer. He knows from all these experiences that trying too demanding to please others results in rejection.
Everyone can respect and appreciate a real man. That’s why Trump has done so well with previously unreachable groups. And that’s why he won.
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Christopher Roach is an adjunct professor at the Center for American Greatness and an attorney in private practice based in Florida. He is a double graduate of the University of Chicago and has previously been published by The Federalist, Takimag, Chronicles, Washington Legal Foundation, Marine Corps Gazette and Orlando Sentinel.
“Trump Rally Crowd” photo by Team Trump.
